NYJMEP: Letter to Ben & Jerry’s

New Yorkers for a Just Middle East Peace (NYJMEP)'s letter to Perry Odak, former Ben and Jerry Chief Executive Officer:

Dear Mr. Perry Odak,

We at New Yorkers for a Just Middle East Peace (NYJMEP) are writing to express our concern about an article published in the June 8, 1998 edition of the Hebrew newspaper Ha’aretz. According to the article, “the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream company yesterday [i.e. June 7, 1998] concluded an agreement with the Mei Eden [Eden Springs] mineral water company, to use only Mei Eden in its sorbet products.”

Our concern is based upon the fact that the Eden Springs company is located in Katzrin in the Golan Heights. As you may know, the Golan Heights is sovereign Syrian territory which Israeli forces occupied during the 1967 war. With its occupation of the Golan Heights, Israel expelled over 120,000 inhabitants - mostly Syrians but also several thousand Palestinian refugees.

At the same time, Israel destroyed two cities, 133 villages and 61 farms. After this devastation, only 6,396 inhabitants remained in the six villages left standing. On December 14, 1981, the Israeli Knesset unilaterally annexed the Golan Heights in clear contravention of international law. The UN Security Council subsequently declared the annexation illegal and, to date, not a single state has recognized it.
Israel has so far built more than 40 settlements housing over 15,000 settlers in the Golan Heights.

The Syrian government has constantly called for Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights. The people of the Golan have consistently resisted the Israelizaton of their land. As with the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, a withdrawal of Israeli forces and the dismantling of Israeli settlements is a precondition to any lasting agreement that will bring a just resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Ben and Jerry’s reported agreement with an Israeli Golan-based company undermines the efforts of those seeking a just peace in the Middle East.

The fact that the agreement is apparently with a major spring water company adds insult to injury: Israel is notorious for its expropriation of water resources, including from the Golan Heights, at the expense of the occupied Arab population.

We are aware that many people buy your products because they consider Ben and Jerry’s to be a liberal-minded corporation concerned, among other things, with global peace. An agreement with a company operating in occupied territory in violation of international law can only hurt the image that Ben and Jerry’s tries to foster.

NYJMEP requests that Ben and Jerry’s terminate any existing contracts with Eden Springs. We are in the process of implementing a boycott of products generated by Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Similar boycotts are already underway in Palestine/Israel and in Europe. Should an agreement indeed exist between Ben and Jerry’s and Eden Spings, and should you continue this agreement, we will consider calling for a boycott of Ben and Jerry’s products.

We hope to receive your answer to this letter by August 31, 1998 in order that we may share your response with the rest of our membership.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Farouk Abdel-Muhti
Tarek Abdel-Muhti
Thomas Abowd
Ammiel Alcalay
Jacob Bender
Ronald Bleier
Sari Fensterheim
Norman Finkelstein
Ira Inklet
Esther Kaplan
Shira Katz
Gayle Kirschenbaum
Nathan Krystall
Bernie McFall
Marilyn Neimark
Yifat Susskind
Elisa Valle
Selma Yampolsky

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New Yorkers for a Just Middle East Peace
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